Gomorrah writer hunted by mafia tires of life in hiding

Since writing his novel about the Camorra, now a celebrated film, Roberto Saviano has been living under threat of assassination. Here he gives his first interview to a UK newspaper since going into hiding

"Ciao, John," came the voice from who knows where. A few months ago, it was still possible to meet Roberto Saviano in person, though even then there was no doubt that his safety was in jeopardy. He was already well known in Italy, though not much beyond, as a young author who had written a scorching denunciation of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, and paid for it with threats to his life. In a meeting we had almost a year ago, two police bodyguards searched the cafe and kept him in view from outside. But he could still enjoy a leisurely coffee surrounded by people who had not been frisked.

Since then, Saviano has become internationally celebrated. His book, Gomorrah, has inspired an award-winning movie that is Italy's candidate for an Oscar. But the number of his bodyguards has increased to five and now he can only be contacted within Italy by telephone. It took 10 days to arrange. Even then, it didn't happen at the appointed time.

The grim paradox of the author's life is that the more famous he becomes, the greater need for him to be invisible, because the more that his book is read, and the more that Matteo Garrone's powerful film is seen, the greater is the heat felt by the Camorra's bosses.

"Most of my problems have come in the last few weeks from a band of camorristi that is going around Campania [the region that includes Naples]. It's a group of between six and 10 people - so quite a small unit - that in six months has caused 18 deaths," Saviano said in his first interview with the British media since announcing he was to leave Italy. "Every time they have struck, I have been moved out of Campania - as far away as possible."

Symbolism

Saviano could not quite bring himself to say that the police believed that he was on a hit list. He said its members "had in their heads the dream of... [pause] ... striking at symbols, let's say".

He is unquestionably a symbol, not just of the Italy that refuses to be cowed by mobsters, but of the universal right to freedom of speech. A group of Nobel prize-winners, including Günter Grass, Orhan Pamuk and Dario Fo, wrote an open letter to the newspaper La Repubblica after it was reported that the godfathers had set Christmas as the deadline for Saviano's elimination. Extracts from Gomorrah have been read in piazzas up and down the country. And more than 200,000 people have signed a petition in support.

Saviano said he had been particularly moved by the Nobel laureates' letter. But, after two and a half years of isolation and persecution, the strain is beginning to show.

Apart from trips abroad to publicise his book, he said, his life was spent between carabinieri barracks and the offices of prosecutors. He longed for a home "where I could live for a year, six months ... instead of which I am being moved around. At the start, I could put up with it, accept it was my fate. But now it's driving me crazy."

It had warped his personality, he said. "Living shut up like an animal turns you into an animal. You become mistrustful. You think that everyone wants to trick you. You envy other people because they're free. You've had the strength - or the stupidity - to speak out, and they've kept quiet."

He said he felt as if he were burdened with "an enormous, gigantic weight that I can no longer carry easily and that is destroying me as a writer". He had been working on a non-fiction novel, but of late most of what he had written was journalism. He managed to write while being moved between "safe houses". "But it's a difficult business, because concentrating is difficult."

Several prominent Italians have appealed to him not to leave his homeland, saying it would represent a victory for the mob. But when asked when he planned to go, his answer was: "As soon as possible." Only logistical difficulties stood in the way of exile, and he hoped they could be resolved by the new year.

Reviewing the film of Gomorrah, my colleague Peter Bradshaw wrote: "After the final credits, it is hard to escape the fear, even the despair, that this whole area - all of Naples, all of southern Italy - is suitable only for a rain of fire from the heavens, or maybe a 1,000-year quarantine, like an ethical or indeed literal Chernobyl." It is a sensation that anyone who knows the area will instantly recognise.

But, said Saviano, "I'd like to ask people not to consider my story as that of a southern Italian and thus of a man who lives in an underdeveloped country of violent men, but to regard it as a European - very European - story. What I and the others who write on these matters are talking about is the biggest single economic force in the European Union. What affects me also affects Londoners, Berliners and Madrilenians. All the organised criminal cartels invest in London and it is no coincidence that London is among the five cities with the highest consumption of cocaine.

"It is about freedom of speech," he said of the issues surrounding his novel and the reaction to it. "But above all, it is about the freedom of the reader, because what has put me in danger is reading. If what I wrote had ended up in the hands of 20,000 people it would not have generated any problem. What put me in danger is that, because of me, millions of people decided to take an interest in the things that interested me."

Salman Rushdie said Saviano's position was even more perilous than his own had been, and Saviano agrees. He recounted the story of a mafioso who turned state evidence and was once asked if a death sentence passed by the dons could ever be lifted. "No," he replied, "Only postponed."

Despite this, and the global reach of the Camorra, which is one theme of Gomorrah, Saviano seems confident that he will find a way to live safely outside Italy without round-the-clock protection. "I'm not absolutely sure," he said. "But I think so."